Customer Reviews

Cry of the Onlies #46 (Star Trek (Numbered Hardcover))

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The plot and the idea behind this book were interesting, interesting enough to hold my attention in spite of the poor writing. And with a few minor quibbles, ("computer consul" instead of "console", for instance) when I say "poor writing", I'm not speaking of sloppy typos, poor grammar or word choice. What I'm talking about is characters that behave in implausible ways (no, I'm being too kind; downright impossible ways). The character interaction just rings blatently untrue. I can suspend disbelief for Warp drives and matter transportation, but I CANNOT suspend disbelief for the young, successful revolutionaries who, after fighting a long and bloody insurrection against arrogant, ruthless, bloody-handed oppressors remain idealistic enough to treat their enemies with a kind and restrained justice, yet are aware enough of the realities of real-politic to be willing to treat with the Romulans and the Klingons if that's what it takes to secure their planet's economic survival. Nor do I believe in a United Federation of Planets that tacitly supported said oppressive previous regime. There are many other examples of similarly dubious interactions in the book; some I cannot detail here without giving away too much of the conclusion of the book. Suffice it to say that the ending was far too pat, and continued to have characters behaving in ways that simply did not fit in with their established characterizations.

Not in the bottom ten of Star Trek novels, but close to it.

There are three distinct threads to this story and eventually merge into one. The first plotline follows a trio of Onlies, the children first introduced in the TV episode 'Miri' who, due to a long ago plague, aged incredibly slowly during childhood and died shortly after entering adolescence. The Federation had sent in a team of experts to care for the children. The second story line concerns the Boaco Six colony which had recently overthrown a corrupt regieme. The new government is now controlled by a 'Council of Youngers' which is determined to correct the past abuses, abuses that the new Council feels that the Federation was a party to. The third plot line involves Flint, the character first introduced in the episode 'Requiem for Methuselah'. Flint has lived through centuries and was in fact, many of the great figures of human history, including such diverse personna as Merlin and Brahams. Now though, Flint was finally beginning to age and uncertain about how to spend his remaining time.

This is an interesting premise, combining such widely different stories and so is the Boacan situation as well. Both situations though bring out a darker aspect of the Federation than the original series usually does. The Federation is protrayed as having some problems with at least incompetance, if not outright corruption, more in line with the outlook of the Next Generation and DS9 points of view.

The endings of the various plotlines is rather too...convenient, predictable, neat but overall the novel manages to breath some new life into the episodes by showing what happened after the Enterprise left.

There have been many more interesting Trek Novels than this one, but it DOES give some answers of what happens to the onlies. I think that Judy Klass will be a good author, but she needs a little bit more practice first. And maybe it would help if the plots were a little more interwoven, ya know, so they would tie in together more. Nevertheless a decent book.

This is not the worst Star Trek novel out there (see Triangle), but it may very well be the most dull, tedious, and downright booorrrring. Kirk and the gang go to a pre-warp planet, one which the Federation has been in touch with for decades (so much for the Prime Directive). Meanwhile, something is going on with Miri and the "Onlies" back on that planet that oh so coincidentally looks exactly like Earth. Just what that something is, I can't say as I didn't make it that far. Trek books are supposed to be mindless entertainment; this one was just mindless.

This book could have tied three episodes of the original series into a good story, but I was turned off when the author mentioned a character from a fourth episode & failed to get the information corect. When he mentions the character, he states that the character had been sent to a rehab colony for the crimes he commited, when in the episode the character died in his own devise after Kirk was able to overpower him & knock him out, causing him to fall into his chair & the power coming back on while he was alone & helpless. Perhaps this author can learn to properly research his subject before attempting to write another book, especially when there is so much readily available on the subject of Star Trek.

I thought that this book was truely thought out, and had a good plot to it aswell. It answered many questions of what had happened to the children after Kirk and co. left especially Miri. It's not a page turner, but never the less it is a good book, and a good story to sink yourself into.